A blind experiment in the kitchen. I tried the “doctoral” sausages: from the cheapest to the most expensive and they chose the most delicious

In the store, I bought three premium cooked sausages in different price categories: the cheapest, the most expensive, and the most expensive. The blind test participants named which one was the most delicious for them and which they thought was the cheapest and most expensive.

The first sausage was the cheapest, its price per kilogram was 2.30 euros.

The price per kilogram of the second sausage is 4.17 euros.

The maximum price per kilogram of third sausage is 9.15 euros.

Four tasters participated in the experiment: two women and two men.

First participant (female, 50 years old)

• The first sausage seemed to have the most meat in terms of consistency, it was somewhat tart.
• The second sausage had a weak taste, the most insipid.
• Third softer and more pleasant texture.

Second participant (male, 71 years old)

• He said that the first sausage is the cheapest and of the highest quality.
• 2nd – average prices and quality.
• Third most expensive and high quality.

Third participant (male, 32 years old)

• The first sausage was the tastiest.
• The second thought it was of the highest quality due to the duller taste.
• The third is the cheapest because it tastes like soap in the mouth.

Fourth participant (female, 32 years old)

• The first sausage is the most delicious.
• Second highest quality, no added flavors, good consistency.
• Third most bland and unpleasant consistency.

Conclusions: Although the opinions of all those who tried it were not the same, they all agreed that the taste and texture of all the sausages was very similar. The participants, knowing the price differences, expected that the price would have a greater impact on the taste and texture. It is true that it is also interesting that for two participants the cheapest sausage was the most delicious, probably due to the added flavor enhancers. It was also surprising that the most expensive sausage was the most bland, although it also had flavor enhancers and even more than the first.

And here, the mid-priced sausage had no flavor enhancers, so it seemed to many to have the weakest flavor.

And here are the compositions of the cooked sausages that we have tested:

Cheapest ingredients for doctor’s sausage:

Pork 44%, lard 19%, water, pork skins 3.5%, salt, pork protein, emulsifier E450, flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate, antioxidants: ascorbic acid, sodium ascorbate, sodium citrates; smoky flavor, spice extracts, carmine coloring, thickener E412, sugar, preservative sodium nitrite.

Average price of the ingredients of the doctor’s sausages:

Ingredients: pork, lard, water, salt, acidity regulators E450, E331, antioxidants: E300, E316, dextrose, spice extracts (allspice, nutmeg shell, garlic, pepper, ginger2), preservative

The most expensive ingredients in doctor’s sausage:

Pork (52%), lard (20%), water, salt, pork protein, milk powder, spices, preservative E250, antioxidant E301, stabilizers E450, E451, acidity regulator E262, E330, E334, enhancer flavor E621, E627, E631, aromas, smoke aroma, dextrose, spice extract, color E120, vegetable extract.

History of the doctoral sausage

Delphi has written about the doctoral sausage and its origin story a little before. Everyone probably knows a sausage called “Doctor.” Once upon a time, in Soviet times, this sausage stood out for its impeccable taste, and it cost 2 rubles 20 kopecks in cash at that time. After a while, the taste of this product deteriorated and dark rumors began to float about its production method.

In any case, today few people probably remember when the sausage began to be made as it was in the beginning, especially few know why in the then USSR the sausage was called “Doctoral”.

20 a. in the first half the famine of the USSR was a frequent visitor, hardly a peasant or a worker who never lost hunger. After the civil war, many farms were impoverished, and subsequent collectivization contributed to this, writes the portal novate.ru.

The last great famine occurred in the USSR in the early 1930s. Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, much of Russia (Urals, Pavolgys, and Siberia, North Caucasus). The situation has been aggravated by the outbreak of fever and other epidemics, which have broken out in regions with food shortages.

The “doctor’s” sausage was caused precisely by hunger. Even when the famine ended, many residents felt its effects. By order of the supreme authority, it was for those people in 1936. He began to make boiled sausages. This sausage was a low-fat diet product. The recipe for the sausage was developed by the Research Institute of the Union of the Meat Industry of the USSR. The first batch of sausages was made in Moscow, at the AI ​​Mikoyan meat processing plant.

There is a legend that he originally wanted to name the new sausage after Joseph Stalin, but the Union Research Institute was afraid to insult the leader of the nations. In the end, he decided to name the sausage “Doctor”, all the more so because the product had to be used for medicinal purposes.

In the first year of making the sausage, doctors prescribed it for patients with signs of somatic starvation. According to the original sausage recipe, 100 kg of the product should have contained: 25 kg of premium veal, 70 kg of lean pork, 3 kg of selected chicken eggs, 2 kg of cow’s milk (milk powder), 2.09 kg of salt, 0.2 kg of sugar, 50 g of spices (usually added nutmeg) and 7.1 g of sodium nitrite.

People immediately liked the sausage because it was a delicious and quality product. At that time, the sausage cost quite a bit, so it was available to everyone. Everything started to change in the early eighties.

The then USSR was not yet threatened with collapse, but when Nikita Khrushchev came to power, economic changes began and the production of exceptional quality “Doctoral” sausages did not change for the better.

Initially, the use of lower-quality meat and other products began, then part of the beef and pork was replaced by soybeans. The new “Daktariška” sausage was no longer like that, and the taste was so different from the original version that rumors spread: he was supposed to put toilet paper on the cooked sausage while it was being stored in the meat plants. Needless to say, such rumors had nothing to do with reality, on the other hand, at the end of the USSR, the quality of cooked sausage deteriorated astronomically.